


Now what?

by HawthornBlood141



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Recovery, Trauma, in between season one and two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3230558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthornBlood141/pseuds/HawthornBlood141
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of time between what happened in the pod and Jemma Simmons going undercover to HYDRA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now what?

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo. I'm not used to write in this fandom so I'm a bit nervous to post this. My brain seems to want to peel every layer of Jemma Simmons and I couldn't shut it down, so this is the result. I hope you'll like it!

 

 

 

Jemma spends 48h in the hyperbaric chamber.

As soon as they let her out, she asks to see him.

****...

He’s alive.

_He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive._

She mentally repeats it, like a mantra, as she sits next to his hospital bed. He looks so fragile, so motionless, it makes her sick. He’s still intubated and somehow that’s what scares her the most, because it means his lungs still aren’t functioning properly.

She grabs his hand, it’s warm under her fingertips and she silently begs him to hold hers back. Just for one second. _Please Leo._

Also.

_You’re an idiot._

And she is so mad. How does he get to make the decision of who gets to live? How could he put her in this position?

Logically, she knows a coma is normal after being deprived of oxygen for so long. That he should wake up any day now and that they will only know the extent of brain damage once they’ll be able to test him. Once he’ll be conscious.

****_I should have swam faster._

On the fourth day, she comes in with two cups of tea, always hopeful that he’ll be awake to drink the one she brings him. But she finds him still as before and chooses instead to nudges Skye awake before handing her the tea.

Skye thanks her, wrinkling her nose slightly at the smell. She’s used to coffee.

“How is he?” Jemma asks, hopeful yet on edge.

Skye shrugs, “same as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before and…” she glances up at Jemma, shoulders lowering, “well, you get it.”

She nods, eyes fixed on Fitz’s EKG beeping rhythmically.  

“I gotta go, I think May is probably expecting me. Thanks for the wake up call and the tea.” Skye stands and puts her hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Jemma already feels tears coming up. She fights them back down. She has been on the verge of breaking down ever since _you’re more than that._

She shakes her head, willing her thoughts to bury themselves back deep within her brain. There is no point in thinking about this, about twirling his words and her feelings over and over and trying to figure out how she feels and what to do with it. She’ll wait until he wakes up, and then she’ll take the time to stop and really think about it.

Yes, that what she will do.

Jemma sits on the armchair Skye left minutes ago, puts her tea on the table nearby and opens the Sunday Mail. She reads the news out loud, hoping the sound of her voice will bring Fitz back.

****_Please please wake up._ __

_Why won’t you wake up?_

…

Day seven. His fingers twitches when she leaves, his name a plea on her lips.

...

It’s been nine days.

Nine long days. And her perception of time must be jagged up because those nine days feel like the longest days of her life. She’s been walking around holding her breath for nine days.

He wakes up as she is commenting the inaccuracy of the medical article she’s been reading. She notices because his EKG, usually so slow and steady begins to speed up. By his side within seconds, she is the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes. She feels her heart sink in her chest as he looks at her in confusion, unable to speak. She immediately calls the nurse.

She breathes again.

Then the battery of tests begins.

Hypoxia, brain damage, fine motor skills impaired on his left side, temporary aphasia that will likely evolve in slowness of speech. She knows all those words, medically she understands that these are all consequences of the trauma his body underwent, yet she still had hope he would have be one of the so-called miracles. That he would have woken up unscattered, exactly as before.

Now eight days later, the world is spinning. Between the tests, the team moving into new headquarters and Coulson needing her expertise on a possible lead, she hasn’t had time to think about what happened in the pod.

Only at night, when she falls asleep, will her mind vividly remind her the trauma she went through. The stress her body and mind undertook, the guilt eating her alive - _I should have found another way_ \- and the _what ifs_ filling her dreams. She wakes up, drenched up in sweat and throat dry, trying to catch her breath.

To avoid the nightmares coming back, she gets up, makes tea and heads to the lab. There she runs the tests Coulson asked for, she reads more article about hypoxia and recovery, she gazes around the empty room meant to be _their lab_ and her chest tighten.

_Now what?_

__

…

He’s out of the hospital, no more tests apart from the regular check up every month or so. He has been cleared for the lab, as long as he doesn’t work more than a couple hours a day.

His body couldn’t take more anyway. The effort demands too much of him and he ends up napping for most of the day. Skye wakes him up to force him dinner and then he falls back asleep again.

“Is it normal?” Skye nervously asks her once, as they clean up the kitchen.

Jemma shrugs, washing a plate. “His brain has to readjust to everything, to relearn everything. It takes a lot of energy. Physical and psychological. Sleeping a lot is a good sign.”

...

They still haven’t talked. She still hasn’t processed what he told her, always pushing the words at the back of her mind, too afraid of what they’ll mean if she takes long enough to really consider them.

He can’t talk. Just isolated words that rises his frustration level to a newfound high she’s discovering.

She finds that for the first time since she’s known him, she can’t finish his sentences. It hurts more than the air she had to force into her lungs as water was rushing inside the pod.  

They’re broken.

…

She doesn’t know how to talk to him anymore. Which is unprecedented or almost. The first few months at the Academy talking to him was a nightmare because he hated her. Now talking to him is unbearable because he can’t get the words out of his mouth and she feels completely helpless.

She tries to be patient with him, to hand him the words he needs, but he always looks at her like he is lost.

...

Jemma begins to read every articles about hypoxia, aphasia, brain damage, anything related to Fitz’s condition. One night, as sleep fails her once again, she finds an article that mention that the reminder of a trauma can prevent a quick and healthy recovery. Her brain begins to spin as bile rises in her throat.

That night, she cries herself to sleep.

…

She stares at him across the lab and all she can think about is the pod and _more than thats_ , and water rushing in. The room begins to spin, walls closing in around her.

He senses her gaze and glance up, a painful look in his eyes that she has never seen before.

Jemma can help the thought crossing her mind. _Would you be better without me?_

...

She tries to use logic. Logic is good, always well thought and drawn from facts. Yes. Logic will help her.

Fact one: They went through a traumatic experience.

Fact two: Fitz’s hypoxia resulted in extended brain damages.

Fact three: Recovery can be slowed down by reminders of traumatic experience.

Fact four: She is the main reminder of that trauma.

Conclusion: For Fitz to get better, she needs to remove herself from the equation.

The realisation is excruciating.

Ten year of friendship and _Fitzsimmons_ , ten years reduced to stiff exchanges and pained looks.

She can’t breathe again.

…

“If you need me, I’m ready to go into the field.”

She doesn’t give Coulson time to greet her, she just walks into his office, unannounced and determined.

She doesn’t notice May until the woman clears up her throat.

“Oh! H-hii May!” Jemma adds chipperly before leaving the room. She winces at the sound of her voice, an octave too high.

...

Coulson finally asks her and she almost doesn’t hesitate.

She’s been fidgety ever since she barged into his office ten days ago.

He seems to regret his decision as soon as she answers _yes,_ breathless and determined.

That night in her bunk, Jemma mentally lists once again all the reasons why it is a good thing. That going undercover at Hydra and leaving, _abandoning really_ , a still recovering Fitz, is _a good thing_.

Her chest feels ten times heavier.

Maybe, hopefully, one day he’ll understand. She doesn’t expect him to understand though. She barely comprehends herself. But she feels lost and incapable of helping him. Everything she does seems to bring him on edge.

Even when he’s in the same room, she looks at him and she finds herself missing him.

She knows how unfair of her it is to ask him to go back to his old self.

So much has changed, and so much more is about to.

 

…

May trains her in secret.

She still can’t sleep anyway. Jemma fleetingly wonders when May rests though. But she never asks, too admirative of the older woman. Jemma is eager to learn and wants be prepared as best as possible. May teaches her the basic with, it seems, a bit of reluctance.

…

 

The lies begin. She is been working on her story ever since she said yes. Maybe even before that. It’ll make it easier to lie.

She is preparing to leave and is hoping to avoid Fitz as much as possible. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to lie to him.

During one of her nightly wanderings, she ends up in the kitchen making tea. She hears his footsteps as Fitz enters the room. He stops when he sees her.

“Hey!” he breathes.

“Hi,” she timidly replies.

An infinite silence takes the space between them.

The awkwardness is agonizing.

She sighs. “Would you like some tea? I was just making some.”

He snaps out of his daze and replies. “Hm, yea- Yeah. Goo- Um- Good idea.”

He smiles as she busies herself preparing his tea. A teaspoon of milk, two sugars.

****Once satisfied of her work, she hands him his cup. He nods, thanking her, and takes a sip. His eyes grow larger almost instantly and it makes her nervous.

“You- Um- You remem- Rememb- Remembered!”

She tries to ignore the guilt caused by his stuttering, a little voice inside her head going _It’s your fault, it’s your fault. He has brain damage and you don’t. It’s your fault. Do something about it._

“Of course I remembered,” she smiles, swallowing down tears.

There’s something in the way he looks at her then, that she cannot define. It’s unsettling and is all she can think about when she goes back to bed.

…

Skye hugs her the longest.

“I’m only visiting my mum and dad, I’ll be back before you know it,” she tries to joke but there’s a lump the size of her fist stuck in her throat.

Fitz has that undefining look in his eyes once again and she frowns.

Before giving it any second thoughts, she throws her arms around his neck. It takes him a few interminable seconds before he closes his arms around her in response.

…

The first night in her new apartment, with yellow walls and well thought out furnitures, she finally lets her guards down. She welcomes the surge of emotions filling up the vacuity of her soul.

She misses her best friend.

_And maybe, more than that._

_Now what?_ **  
  
**


End file.
